


The Steve G. Rogers Guide to Life in the Twenty-First Century

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, No Spoilers, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 07:32:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2301587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"Bananas don’t taste like they used to,"</em> Sam repeated, incredulous. “Steve, is that… an euphemism, or something?”</p><p>Steve let out a loud sigh. “And <em>this</em> brings me to point two," he said. "Wherever you don’t get a reference, just assume they're talking about sex.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Steve G. Rogers Guide to Life in the Twenty-First Century

**Author's Note:**

> Quick vignette I wrote in like one hour to get the hang of the characters. I’m pretty sure I utterly failed but.. practice makes perfect? Or better, at least? Please have mercy.

The thing was, Steve _liked_ the future.

From a purely external, not-subjective point of view; but still. Whenever he managed to forget that everyone he’d known was now dead, that things like the Cold War had actually happened, that these days he was considered more of a symbol than an actual person –

and seriously why was the memorial at Arlington still standing, Tony’s people had made _calls_ –

So, okay, Steve spent most of his days brooding. But when he didn’t, he liked to be very vocal in his enthusiastic appreciation for the wonders of the twenty-first century. The future was _awesome_ , whatever the nostalgic hipsters liked to say; and Steve was pretty proud of how well he’d managed, _considering_.

He could drive each and every one of the fancy new vehicles, text on his StarkPhone as well as any college kid, and order a coffee at Starbucks in the middle of the morning rush. He knew how to shop at Wal-Mart and use twitter and what HBO was, unlike _some people_ in the Supreme Court. And he was damn _proud_ of it.

After all, how many people would do _this_ well if they ended up in the future? Think on that, Tony Stark, and take back your old man jokes.

Which was why, once Bucky was back and actually _better_ , he felt compelled to share all his new-found, hardly-obtained knowledge.

To mixed results.

**The Steve G. Rogers Guide to Living in the Twenty-First Century**

“You did not actually _write_ that,” Bucky said, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms against his chest. “Even you cannot be that pedantic.”

“I did not. I was just trying to explain what this is –”

“Steve, we’ve talked about that,” Bucky interrupted, “I don’t need you to explain how things works. I was brainwashed, not dead. I know about pop culture.”

Somewhere in the next room, they heard Sam snicker. “Yeah, right,” he said, wandering into the living room. “That coming from the guy who’d never heard of _M*A*S*H_ until last Tuesday.”

“Whatever,” Bucky said, giving him an half-hearted glare. They got along surprisingly well, Bucky and Sam, especially considering their first meeting. Especially considering that they were currently _staying_ at Sam’s, bless him, because he’d said that Steve was too hopeless to be left alone, and Bucky was _challenging_. The man was clearly mad.

“Look,” Bucky continued. “Just gimme that damn list, let’s get this over with.” And he all but grabbed the notebook from Steve’s hands, opening it up to _The List_ – right after the one with all the movies he hadn’t watched yet. “The things you make me do. You realize, the _you tried to kill me_ excuse won’t work forever…”

“Pretty sure it will,” Steve said.

“Oh, shut up.” He cleared his throat. “Okay, point one –”

**1\. Twilight**

“Oh you did _not_ , Rogers. I can’t believe you started the list with that, really, how do you –”

“What’s Twilight?” Bucky asked, sounding confused – which was good – and almost interested – which was a definite _hell nope_.

“Oh, don’t you worry your pretty head over it, Barnes,” Sam said. “It’s nothing.”

He didn’t look convinced, eyes shifting from Sam to Steve and then back again. “What are you not telling me?”

“No really, it’s nothing,” Steve said. “I swear. It’s just – it’s something very stupid that was very famous when I woke up so I wrote it in. But no one cares now. I swear.”

**2\. Bananas don’t taste like they used to**

Bucky blinked, surprised. “That’s… really not what I was expecting.”

It was Steve’s turn to be surprised. “What, you mean you didn’t _notice_?”

“The cryo stuff screwed with my taste buds, I can’t feel anything,” Bucky began, deadpan, before looking up at Steve and making a face. “Yes, of course I _noticed_. I just – I mean, it’s not that important, how they taste.”

“Like hell it isn’t. If I’m putting something in my mouth I want to know what’s gonna taste like, you know? I mean, the first time, I had to spit it out.” Steve made a face. “It wasn’t pretty. I think I upset Fury a little.”

Next to them, Sam cleared his throat. Loudly. “You guys talking about… bananas?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “They don’t taste like they use to, y’know?”

“And I’m saying,” Bucky continued. “It just _doesn’t matter_. It’s not like you’re doing it for the taste anyway.”

“Oh my God.” That was Sam. “Wait. _Bananas don’t taste like they used to_ ,” he repeated, incredulous. “Steve, is that… an euphemism, or something?”

Bucky laughed – an actual, honest to god laugh, the kind Steve had gotten to hear maybe twice since everything. It was a pretty good sound, he decided, but the context… was not.

Steve let out a loud sigh. “No, we are talking about actual bananas. The kind that grows on trees, and tastes awful.” To Bucky, he gave an eyeroll. “And _this_ brings me to point two.”

"You mean point three?"

"Nope, point two," Steve repeated. "We're pretending the _Twilight_ thing never happened."

**3\. Wherever you don’t get a reference, just assume it’s about sex.**

“That’s actually fairly useful,” Sam said. “Man I wish you’d told this to eleven year old me. I once asked my mom what _going down on someone_ meant.”

Steve just stared at that. Even when _he_ ’d been eleven, going to school at St. Andrew’s and at church every Sunday, he’d known better than to ask _his mother_. He’d asked Bucky instead, who got half his knowledge from Jack O’Malley next door, and the other half was evenly split between Johnny Davies’s dirty pictures and just making it up.

The silence stretched on, uncomfortable.

“That was before the internet,” Sam clarified. “And… really not one of my proudest moments, all considered.”

Bucky just kept staring for a while. “Right,” he said, eventually. “Point three.”

**4\. Ronald Regan**

“Right,” Sam laughed. “I forgot about that. You ever met the guy?”

“Yeah,” Steve nodded. “Let’s just… go straight to the next one, okay?”

**5\. Star Wars is like underwear**

“Explain,” Bucky said. “I don’t even know if I _want_ to make sense of this one.”

“Wait,” Sam cut in. “I thought you hadn’t watched Star Wars yet? Isn’t it on your pretty list of references you don’t get yet?”

Yeah, right. As if. “I get _all_ the Star Wars references, Sam,” he said. “I lived with _Tony Stark_ for a month.” Which had been more like three weeks, mostly busy with cleaning up after Manhattan and the Loki mess – but still, Tony made _a lot_ of geeky references; he’d even taught Steve what the word meant.

“I just haven’t figured out the right order to watch them in yet. Everyone’s got a different opinion. Like underwear.”

Bucky frowned. “In which order are you supposed to watch it? One, two, three. It’s not _hard_.”

“One-two-three, four-five-six according to Barton, who said I look like a linear storytelling kind of guy,” Steve explained. “Stark says the opposite. Natasha said I shouldn’t watch the prequels because they’re bad and she’d judge me if I do, Bruce said the sixth is not as good as they say and –”

“What do you mean,” Bucky asked, “the _sixth_? There are _six_ movies?”

 **6.** ~~**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** ~~ **Still no flying cars** ~~**  
** ~~

The next point was crossed over.

“And that would be?” Sam asked, "and don't tell me itps the flying car, I can see you just wrote that like, two minutes ago. You used a _different pen_."

Steve just looked at him. “Sorry, not telling.”

“What’s the purpose?” Bucky said. “I mean you hand me a list of things I _should know_ and you don’t tell me what’s on it. That’s just not fair.”

“Still not telling.” Steve said. “I didn’t get it then, I do now, and it’s frankly very embarrassing. Moving on.”

(Bucky gave him the ‘we’ll talk about this later’ look. Steve just pretended not to notice.)

 **7.** **Boner**

Bucky snickered.

“What about boners?” Sam asked, frowning. “I mean, I know, but I don’t get why you’d put it on the Twenty First century stuff list – I thought you guys had sex back in the Forties…”

“Boner,” Bucky explained, _delighted,_ “is slang for _erection_.”

Sam blinked. “Yeah, man, I know. I’ve had some in my life.”

“It didn't mean the same thing back then.”

“Oh.” Sam’s smile widened. “ _Oh_.”

“You ever wrote _boner_ in some mission report, Stevie?”

He had, he fucking _had_ , and Fury had laughed even more than Sam was doing now. “I hate you both.”

 **8.** **Captain (1993)**

“Oh yes, that was a pretty good movie,” Sam said. “Got a few Oscars, too.”

“Let’s _not_.”

“I’m saying, as far as pop culture milestones go, you got worse stuff to complain about. I mean, there’s the comics, and the 1981 movie, and the video games, and the –”

“Sam, just shut up.” 

**9\. Stealthy dickpics**

“What.”

“It’s just… I wasn’t expecting _those_.”

"Oh, Cap," Sam said. "No one ever does."

**10\. The internet is a wonderful, wild place**

“And just how many dickpics took you to realize that, Steve?” Sam asked, looking entirely too smug.

“I… might or might not have ended up on 4chan my first month,” Steve explained. Bucky winced.

“Shit pal,” he said. “I’m _so_ sorry.”

He sounded sorry – genuinely so, which worried Steve a little. “How do you even know 4chan?”

It was Bucky’s turn to look shifty – Steve figured it was payback for the Twilight line, but really, he wanted to know. He’d never been much for patience.

“Some of the operatives at Hydra used 4chan to coordinate,” Bucky began, making Sam’s eyes go wide, “they might have... created the site, actually. No one from the government would believe anything anyone wrote there, which was kind of the point. So, I know what 4chan’s like.”

Long pause

“Okay... I have a question,” Steve asked – because, really, it _had_ to be asked. “On the boards. How did they know which ones were the Hydra agents, and which ones were the trolls?”

Bucky threw him a very dignified look. “They had code words,” he said.

Code words. _Right_.

"So, Hydra created 4chan." Sam said, sounding entirely too gleeful. “This is _awesome_."

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

(Number six was crossed over twice, before Steve eventually just gave up and wrote that bit about flying cars instead.)

(The first time, Steve had started to write _googling yourself_ , like he’d seen Stark do – but he’d had to stop, scared by the sheer number of books and movies and wikipedia pages that saw him as only a symbol; and then he’d found the fansites, and then – )

(Oh My Captain XXX (2009): The Porn Parody)

(He never told Bucky. Knowing him, he’d actually _watch_ it.)


End file.
